The personal blog of Peter Lee a.k.a. "China Hand"... Life is a comedy to those who think, a tragedy to those who feel, and an open book to those who read. You are welcome to contact China Matters at the address chinamatters --a-- prlee.org or follow me on twitter @chinahand.

Tuesday, February 25, 2014

Was the Ukraine Coup America’s Main Event at the Sochi Olympics?

In my previous post, I speculated that the US and EU
orchestrated the climax of the Ukraine crisis to occur while Vlad was
preoccupied with presiding over his beloved Olympics, and unwilling or unable
to destroy the soft power vibe by intervening forcefully in the Ukraine, or
even giving the matter his more complete attention.

Clever, clever America, if this was the case.

Of course, with what we know now about the aggressive
Western destabilization effort in Ukraine—which included subversion, coercion,
and even comfort and aid to violent insurrectionists against Yanukovich’s
hapless elected government—it is rather ironic that the Western media anointed Putin
History’s Greatest Monster February 2014 Edition.

Well, it is also ironic that Putin preached non-intervention
and let Ukraine (and Yanukovich, obviously not his BFF) stew, while it was the
West and the ever-reliable Western media that engaged in active cheerleading
and more, intervening in Ukraine to facilitate the overthrow of an elected
government on Russia’s borders.

Wait a minute.Maybe
that’s too ironic.Maybe it was intentional.Maybe the Western campaign against Putin and
Sochi was part of the pre-emptive framing effort to depict events in Ukraine as
a struggle of freedom-loving Euro-Ukrainians against the Evil Empire.

I always thought the ostensible reason for the near
universal boycott of the Sochi opening ceremonies by President Obama and the EU
states always smelled a little fishy.As
I recall, the guy who runs Belgium was the only Atlantic leader who showed up.

There was considerable rumbling in the Western press, I
recall, that the forces of freedom were dumping on Putin and Sochi because of
the anti-gay propaganda law, a justification that has a few holes in it,
considering that the legal position of LGBTs is more protected in Russia than
it is in several US states.And let’s
not forget the brutal oppression of stray dogs—cute, cuddly puppies!—by the
heartless Russian bear.

Maybe the Sochi-time hostility was more a matter of making
sure that Putin and Russia were on the wrong side of global opinion—and less
likely to risk spoiling the optics of the Games by throwing themselves into a
regional crisis—when Ukraine finally blew up.

As to why the United States was so keen to hand Russia a
geopolitical loss, maybe it has to do with support for the EU’s long-standing
desire to wrench Ukraine into the Western column.

I hope so.

Because an alternate possibility is that the United States
did it for revenge, to punish Putin for not going along with the US program on
Syria.

That’s not great because, if so, the decision might have
been made out of short-sighted spite, and the West might have taken sole
custody of the Ukrainian tar baby just as its finances are teetering to
collapse and the split between eastern and western Ukrainians threatens to turn into a permanent rift.

It would be…ironic! There’s that word again!—if punishing
Putin over Syria turned Ukraine into another Syria.

I don’t think this revenge scenario is too outlandish.President Obama seems to be a man who likes
his revenge served cold—icy cold—and maybe underneath that controlled façade he
was itching to show Putin that Russia could not lightly defy US demands to
withdraw support from Assad and collapse the Syrian government.I believe personal disdain and the need to
assert his credentials as world’s numero uno big boss drives President Obama’s
foreign policy with regard to Putin, with the Chinese leadership (ever since he
was subjected to a finger-wagging tirade by China’s chief climate negotiator
for America’s botched outing at the Copenhagen summit in 2010), and of course,
his counterproductive crusade—now in its third dismal year with a promise of
further escalation-- to destroy Syria and further destabilize the Middle East
in order to punish Bashar Assad for refusing to go when Obama told him to go.

One hopes that twelve-dimensional chess is guiding US moves
in the Ukraine.But if that policy is in
the hands of a crude neo-con like "Fuck the EU" Victoria Nuland, maybe we’re looking at another
one of those “nobody could have foreseen” bloody foreign policy botches that
the US seems to specialize in nowadays.

And Putin might have the last laugh, withholding Russia’s
promised contribution of $15 billion while the EU scrambles to come up with the
$30 billion Ukraine needs to get through the year (amazingly, the US has to
date made no commitment to provide financial aid, something the EU is probably
noticing; and thinking Thanks a Billion! Not! Vicky Nuland, since the
aggressive US strategy blew up the transitional government negotiated by the EU
that might have kept Russia in the game and on the hook).

A year from now it might be Vladimir Putin who’s
saying Thanks! Victoria Nuland.Thanks to you I was spared the cost and trouble of propping up a dysfunctional pro-Russian government in the
Ukraine.I saved $15 billion bucks…turned
a nice profit since I could drop concessional pricing in the new gas contracts…and
I picked up east and south Ukraine as new Russian provinces for free!

4 comments:

I think it more likely this was Obama's revenge for Putin harbouring Snowden rather than backing Syria. The revenge for Syria is still to come. Maybe it will involve Belarus, though that country is damned careful to keep the NED, IRI, DNI and Freedom House (the irony is too much for me) out.Unfortunately for Obama, the Ukrainian people could toss a spanner in the works unless the US/EU really come through with the money free of IMF strings. At the forthcoming presidential election, if the Party of Regions and the Communist Party put up a single candidate, there is a good chance that such a candidate would defeat the opposition who are already fracturing. Would the Party of Regions and the Communist Party be banned - that would be undemocratic, contrary to the aims of the "revolution" and against Washington's principles

Maybe you're right re Snowden. In any case, unless the EU & US are ready to reward the opposition big time, the rush to get Pottery Barned (get full custody of a broken country) is rather mystifying. Wonder if the best and brightest have anything up their sleeves.

By the end of 1945, 100,000 U.S. troops were fighting alongside Chinese Kuomintang (and Japanese) forces in Communist-held areas of northern China. Chiang Kai-Shek and the Kuomintang may have been the most corrupt of all U.S. allies. A steady stream of U.S. advisers in China warned that U.S. aid was being stolen by Chiang and his cronies, some of it even sold to the Japanese, but the U.S. commitment to Chiang continued throughout the war, his defeat by the Communists and his rule of Taiwan. Secretary of State Dulles' brinksmanship on behalf of Chiang twice led the U.S. to the brink of nuclear war with China on his behalf in 1955 and 1958 over Matsu and Qemoy, two small islands off the coast of China.